After returning briefly to my room for a candle and matches, I set out to explore what lay beyond the hidden door. I had to duck my head to pass through it, and when I did I found a small empty chamber with stone walls and floor. Perhaps “chamber” was giving it more than its due: there was scarcely much to it beyond a stairwell with stone steps leading downward. Its size must have been determined by what space there was at this corner of the house between the windows on the two perpendicular walls.
When I examined the door, I found that the latch on the inside was controlled by a button similar to that on the wainscoting side. I made certain it worked from this side before I shut it behind me. I had no desire to be trapped in the little room—or wherever it led.
From the stairwell I felt again that chilly current of air. Was the other end of this passage open to the outdoors? I could only find out by making the journey.
That journey was the strangest of my life. Not only was I venturing into uncharted, even unguessed territory, but I did so with a combination of urgency and reluctance. My instincts told me that I must stop Atticus from doing whatever his dark hints had referred to, whatever—I inferred—was putting his future, or ours, in danger; but the prospect of what might lie ahead struck me with an almost paralyzing dread. Whether it was some dark side of Atticus himself or some unknown party, I knew this was not an adversary I would find it easy to confront. I had begun to evolve a theory about the hidden player in this gruesome ongoing drama of Gravesend, and I wasn’t certain which outcome would be more horrifying: to be right or to be wrong.
The steps led down past a similar small landing or chamber at the next floor, and then another at what would have been the bottom floor with the kitchen, scullery, pantry, wine cellar, and the like; but it descended again before feeding into a stone-lined passage through which the cold breeze came, more strongly now, stinging my cheeks. I hesitated at the mouth of it. The candle’s flame illuminated a long stretch of tunnel narrowing into a wall of darkness. I could not tell how long the passage was, where it led, or whether anyone was guarding it. All I knew was that I did not want to give anyone a hint of my coming.
I extinguished the candle and placed it on the bottom step against the wall where, I hoped, I would be able to retrieve it later. The matches I kept in my pocket. I unlaced my boots and set them aside as well; otherwise the sound of my footsteps would reveal my presence just as readily as would the light of the candle. Thank heaven I had not dressed in taffeta or any such rustling fabric.
The passage was so narrow that it would have been impossible to walk two abreast. As I progressed I felt along the left-hand wall with one hand, with the other extended before me in case I encountered an obstacle. The stone walls of the passage were rougher than those in the stairwell through which I had come; evidently this was not a route intended for much traffic, although this I had already gleaned. I thought of what Richard—no, Atticus—had told me about the Blackwoods’ smuggling days, and I knew this must be a remnant of those times. That meant that this tunnel probably led to a bay of some kind where ships could have unloaded the contraband goods.
I could not tell how long I felt my way along the passage. Hours, it seemed. The passage sloped downward, but so gently that I could not say how far beneath the earth it descended. It turned occasionally, sometimes so sharply that only the hand extended before me prevented me from walking into the opposite wall. Soon I had lost all sense of what direction I was going in. Occasionally one stockinged foot would come down on a pebble—or dislodge one, and each time I caught my breath, listening to the echo of it skittering against the walls, and hoped that no other ears had caught the sound. The darkness became oppressive, my hands and feet grew colder and colder, and I had to suppress panicked thoughts about never finding my way out again. All I knew for certain was that I was moving farther away from Gravesend with every step… and closer, I devoutly hoped, to Atticus.
At one point the faint echoes of my own progress vanished, and the wall on my right seemed to fall away. When after listening hard I caught no sign of any presence other than my own, I drew a match from my pocket and struck it against the rough stone wall.
The light that sputtered into being was drowned in a great dark space, but when I moved the match I could see that I was in a large, rough-hewn chamber. A few old wooden barrels were stacked along the far wall, along with a newer packing crate. On the crate rested a candle in a holder, matches, half a loaf of brown bread, a bottle that must once have held wine, and a pewter mug. Someone had been here recently, for the bread was neither moldy nor bitten by vermin. Before the match sputtered out I also saw a straw pallet, a stack of folded blankets, and an upended crate with a broken mirror upon it. Had someone been living down here? And if so, for how long? There was no answer to be gleaned from the scant objects I saw, so I struck another match, located the arched opening where the passage continued, and resumed my journey.
It grew colder. The breeze strengthened all the time, and at last it brought something with it besides the numbing chill and what I was beginning to think was the briny tang of the sea. It brought the sound of voices.
Or was it merely one voice—Atticus, again, in a terrible dialogue with himself? More swiftly I crept along, but taking pains to be ever more stealthy. If the last incident was to be taken as precedent, my intrusion would bring the discussion to an end. I must overhear without being noticed. Fortunately the sound of thunder had ceased, so I did not have to strain to hear over it.
When the voices—or voice—came again, closer, my footsteps slowed and I clung more closely to the wall.
“I refuse to believe you’ve no conscience.” That was certainly Atticus.
But the answering laughter was also Atticus’s. “A conscience is a heavy burden,” came the drawled response. “I’ve traveled lighter without one.”
There was an exclamation of… disbelief? disgust? “How can you say such a thing? You cannot claim your soul is at peace with itself after you murdered two men in cold blood.”
My involuntary gasp was drowned out by an impatient sigh. “A sick old man with one foot in the grave, and a dangerous lunatic? Some might say I did them a service. Besides, Collier’s death was crucial. Without that admission of guilt, you’d still be on the hook for Father’s death.”
There was a silence. I could hear, faintly, the sound of surf or rain; I could not be certain which. “I know you have some scruples left,” the first voice said. “Show it: be a man, and turn yourself in to the authorities.”
“So you aim to school me in being a man?” scoffed the second voice. “You with that pistol you’re afraid to use, and your comely bride a virgin still? I was more of a man than you when we were still in short pants.”
I bit my lip. Still I could not be certain whether this was Atticus alone. I crept forward a few more steps until I neared a corner, beyond which I could see light glowing faintly on the rough stone. Candlelight, perhaps—or a lamp, since its illumination was steady. Illumination, I thought desperately, is sorely in need here.
“I’m not afraid to use it,” came the voice of Atticus—my Atticus—quiet and grave. “I’m simply hoping it won’t be necessary and your better nature will prevail. Despite our differences, and despite the terrible things you have done, I would still prefer not to have to shoot my own brother.”
My hands flew to my mouth to hold back a gasp. So it was true. It had seemed so farfetched an idea… but the more I had considered it during that long, strange progress in the dark, the more logical it had become. All except for the central mystery: how?
I edged closer to the light and very, very slowly moved my head to peer around the corner.
Atticus and his twin stood confronting each other in a shallow cave formed where the passage opened out. From where I stood, a narrow set of roughly hewn stone steps led down to the sandy ground on which they stood. Beyond, although I could not see it in the darkness of night, must be a cove, and I knew I had been right to suppose
that the passage and the underground chamber had been constructed with smuggling in view.
A lamp placed on a flat rock lit up the two figures as if they were on a stage. But the pistol in Atticus’s bandaged hand was no prop, and this confrontation, as fantastical as it seemed, was no playwright’s creation.
Atticus held the gun trained on his brother. There was no wavering in his grip or in the sober gravity of his eyes, but a telltale tremor fluttered in his bad leg. I wondered suddenly how long the two men had been wrangling here, how long Atticus had been on his guard, so focused and so intent. How much longer could he maintain his watchful stance before his concentration broke and his brother made a move to disarm him—or worse?
Richard, in contrast, seemed as relaxed as if he were at a garden party. As I watched, he lit a Turkish cigarette from the lamp, then replaced the glass chimney and propped one foot on the rock as he regarded his brother.
The years had wrought some changes, but they had not been unkind to him. His clothes were rough, but his movements as easy and powerful as ever. He sported several days’ worth of ginger whiskers, and his hair wanted washing, but the lean rangy lines of his body were not blurred, nor was the speculative gleam in his ice-blue eyes. The half smile that curved his mouth was so familiar that it clenched my stomach with dread and a kind of superstitious fear. He did not fear his brother—no, nor did he even take him seriously. Atticus was not going to win the day by appealing to Richard’s better nature.
And Atticus knew it.
He knew that a man ruthless enough to kill his own father and a relative stranger would not be motivated now by contrition or a sense of justice. But, being a man of honor himself, Atticus could not give up trying to evoke those long-buried impulses in his brother. After all, he must be thinking, in spite of everything, we are twins. We are branches of the same root.
But Richard had traveled far since their common origin, and I despaired of his retaining all but the faintest glimmer of kinship with my husband. Even as I watched, his eyes flicked over Atticus, taking in, I was certain, the slight spasm in his bad leg. His walking stick was nowhere to be seen. No—there it was, broken in half and lying on the sand. I noticed now how churned up the sand was. Had they struggled here before Atticus drew the pistol? It seemed likely. Surely he would have saved it for a last resort.
My heart swelled suddenly with a fierce, hot rush of love for him that was actually painful, and tears squeezed from my eyes. My brave, foolish, steadfast husband was going to confront this matter according to his own sense of fair play, whatever the risk to himself. And the risk was so terribly great. For an instant I sagged against the wall, overwhelmed by the crushing weight of what seemed an inevitability.
Then I straightened, wiped my eyes with my sleeve, and set myself with renewed determination to watching, listening, and waiting for the moment to make a move. He had an ally, and Richard did not know it. Somehow I would help tip the scales in Atticus’s favor. You are not in this fight alone, I silently vowed.
Richard lounged casually where he stood, one elbow propped on his bent leg, flicking ash from his cigarette. “You’re looking a bit seedy, old fellow,” he said. “Tired, are we? Why don’t you stop this charade? We both know you would never kill your own brother.”
My husband’s smile belied the tension in his stance. “Perhaps not, but I might wound you severely. Enough to incapacitate you until the authorities arrive.” A pause, as if he were weighing choices. “In the thigh, say. It might not kill you, but it would slow you down well enough. And it would be damned painful.” His eyes always on Richard, he carefully switched the pistol to his other hand, and I remembered with a jolt the injuries to his shoulder and hand—more weaknesses Richard might know to exploit, especially if he had been the cause of his brother’s so-called accident. “That’s a bad place to be wounded,” he continued, as calmly as if he felt no fear. “Through no intention of mine, you might even bleed to death before assistance arrived. Are you willing to chance it?”
This did not ruffle his brother. “I’m a pretty tough specimen, and far more ruthless than you. If you injure me but don’t finish the job, you can be certain I’ll not stop until I have made an end with you.” He drew on the cigarette again, and observed, “It isn’t that I bear you any ill will, you understand. But you must go somewhere if I’m to step into your shoes, and I can tell you are too stubborn to vanish as I did. No, if I’m to become the new baron—”
It was then that I slipped.
I had been inching closer to the two of them in my stocking feet, when I stepped on a pebble that abruptly rolled under my foot and nearly threw me off balance. I caught myself in time, but there must have been some sound—the rattle of the dislodged stone, some rustle or gasp or simply the rush of my body through the air—and both faces turned in my direction.
It all happened in an instant. Atticus’s shock was the greater, and his attention rested on me just a moment too long. Richard, recovering more quickly, lunged across the distance that separated them and, even as the warning cry hovered on my lips, brought something down on Atticus’s head that made him crumple to the ground. He lay there unmoving.
“Thank you for your help, Clara,” said Richard almost gaily, as dread churned in my stomach. Atticus could not be dead, surely? Richard nudged the pistol away from him with one foot, and when Atticus neither moved nor protested, he bent swiftly to retrieve it.
“What did you hit him with?” The question forced itself from me.
“A blackjack,” he said, and flourished it. It was a small thing, so small that—I realized now—he must have had it concealed in his sleeve all this while, just waiting for a moment when his brother’s focus wavered… the moment I had blunderingly created.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he continued, still in high spirits. “This isn’t the greeting I expected from a former sweetheart. For that matter, how did you end up married to the martyred Atticus here?”
“I thought you were dead,” I said. I did not mean it as an answer to his question; it was simply the only thing that came to me to say. A kind of numbness seemed to have descended upon me, and I sounded quite calm. “We all did.”
He chuckled. “I did quite a thorough job of dying, didn’t I? Not even Father guessed. Although I didn’t expect him to have a stroke when I returned. That was a bit more of a reaction than I had anticipated. But let’s have a look at you! Come closer, pet.”
There was a thread of command in the words, and although he was not pointing the pistol at me, we were both aware that this could change at any moment. Slowly I descended the stone steps into the cavern. Atticus still had not moved, and I needed to get closer to him so that I could see if he still breathed. On that everything else hinged.
Richard had pocketed the blackjack, and now the hand not holding the pistol caught my hand. “My soul upon it, but the years have been kind to you, Clara. Come, give us a kiss.”
Gazing on Richard’s face again after so long was unsettling, in more ways than one. Seen up close, however, he did not look as untouched by time as he had seemed at a distance. There were traceries of red blood vessels showing in his cheeks and nose, and together with a puffiness about his eyes they suggested that he had grown immoderate in his habits. The end of a scar showed just above his collar beneath his left ear.
“Were you wounded in the Crimea?” I asked, indicating it. An irrelevant point, but I was still trying to collect my wits. And I did not wish to kiss him.
“Wounded—? Oh, the scar. No, that I received one fine dawn from an outraged husband.” He laughed at my expression. “My dear girl, I do not claim to be a saint, or anything like it. I have always enjoyed feminine company, and when one has to move about rather unexpectedly, as I have, married women are so much less of an encumbrance.” He smiled as he held me at arm’s length and surveyed me again with evident pleasure. “It was most considerate of Atlas to provide me with a bride along with the other perquisites of the barony. Come, Clara
, you’ve not even said that you missed me.”
“Missed you!” But his self-certainty would work to my advantage if I could but shore it up sufficiently for him to assume me an ally. “My life ended when yours did,” I said, and the remembered grief and agony of those years came back in a rush. I saw my younger self from a remove, with the pity of one who now knew that the man I had lost had not been worth shedding tears over. “Why did you let everyone believe you had died?”
His shrug was magnificently unconcerned. “Oh, life as myself had become damnably complicated. Some rather highly placed chappie was after me for bilking him of a good sum of money at cards. And then at Eupatoria another officer accused me of interfering with his wife, and suddenly death seemed quite convenient.”
I was nearly certain then that there had been a faint movement from Atticus. The more time I could buy for him, the better situated we would be to overpower Richard. I could only steal quick glances at him, or else I would arouse Richard’s suspicion—especially since, as I recalled, Richard preferred to be one’s entire focus of attention.
“The death mask was a clever touch,” I said, and his chuckle was richly self-satisfied.
“I fancied so. It was unpleasant enough being cast, but having the sawbones send it along with the news of my death seemed like the perfect way to convince my father that I was truly gone.” He narrowed his eyes at me speculatively. “I had not expected to find you wedded to my brother, even if it is merely for show.”
During his boasting I had had time to think of an explanation. “When Atlas proposed, I thought it might be like having you back in some ways,” I said. “Being here at Gravesend, with all its memories of you, seemed worth enduring him for.”
“How fortunate that you overcame your revulsion to him and accepted him. Now you shall have me back and remain the lady of Gravesend.”
I forced myself to smile. “Fortunate indeed! But how did you know that our marriage is no more than show?”
With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense Page 29